Like Moths to a flame: Paul, Mohammad and EROS Richard Hays says that he and Wright agree that Paul’s theology arises from an” Eschatological Dialect” and while Paul’s theology does, indeed, emerge from a systematic dialectic, the dialectic emerges from Epistemology. As Wright says in a number of places in commentary of Romans, Jesus represents a new way of KNOWING and everything for Paul proceeds, as Wright correctly intuits, from coherence. In this respect, Paul pays lip service to the cross and the resurrection, but his ultimate source is his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and the orientation of his defintion of LOVE is Eros and not Agape. This is the defining differnce between Paul and the author of Mark (who I contend is Cornelius) whose relationship is not with Jesus, but with Yaweh, which is to say, Cornelius has the same relationship with Yaweh as Jesus and Abraham as a direct result of his profession, and recognizes in Jesus the devotion to duty as one under authority to God the Father and in response to Yaweh, Queen of Battle. I would say that EROS is likewise the binding element between the Disciples and Jesus in the sense that they are clearly dealing with an Archetype before His crucifixion and something transcendent afterwards. It is not Agape, which flows from Jesus to those He encounters. I think this is part of the source of the virulent criticism of Paul by Muslim apologists. Very clearly, Mohammad’s role is to act as the model of EROS in the worship of Allah, EROS is the engine of Jihad and I suspect that Mohammad’s experience of Allah was of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, which is a feminine aspect of God that combat soldiers and fire fighters experience as Duty, or, as Freud observed, She who must be obeyed. In any event. Paul is a threat to the primacy of Mohammad because his entire theological expression is fueled by EROS of an entirely different, and divine, quality in contrast to the far more base and venal quality Mohammad offers. Just for the record, a favorite criticism of Muslim apologists of the Gospels is the enormous range of translations of the canon, beginning with the conversion of Aramaic into Greek, as compared to the Qur’an, which is available only in Arabic. Well, the fact is Jesus can be understood in any language because He spoke in tongues while Mohammad lacks the gifts of the spirit.
Like Moths to a flame: Paul, Mohammad and EROS
Richard Hays says that he and Wright agree that Paul’s theology arises from an” Eschatological Dialect” and while Paul’s theology does, indeed, emerge from a systematic dialectic, the dialectic emerges from Epistemology. As Wright says in a number of places in commentary of Romans, Jesus represents a new way of KNOWING and everything for Paul proceeds, as Wright correctly intuits, from coherence.
In this respect, Paul pays lip service to the cross and the resurrection, but his ultimate source is his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus and the orientation of his defintion of LOVE is Eros and not Agape. This is the defining differnce between Paul and the author of Mark (who I contend is Cornelius) whose relationship is not with Jesus, but with Yaweh, which is to say, Cornelius has the same relationship with Yaweh as Jesus and Abraham as a direct result of his profession, and recognizes in Jesus the devotion to duty as one under authority to God the Father and in response to Yaweh, Queen of Battle. I would say that EROS is likewise the binding element between the Disciples and Jesus in the sense that they are clearly dealing with an Archetype before His crucifixion and something transcendent afterwards. It is not Agape, which flows from Jesus to those He encounters.
I think this is part of the source of the virulent criticism of Paul by Muslim apologists. Very clearly, Mohammad’s role is to act as the model of EROS in the worship of Allah, EROS is the engine of Jihad and I suspect that Mohammad’s experience of Allah was of Yaweh, Queen of Battle, which is a feminine aspect of God that combat soldiers and fire fighters experience as Duty, or, as Freud observed, She who must be obeyed. In any event. Paul is a threat to the primacy of Mohammad because his entire theological expression is fueled by EROS of an entirely different, and divine, quality in contrast to the far more base and venal quality Mohammad offers.
Just for the record, a favorite criticism of Muslim apologists of the Gospels is the enormous range of translations of the canon, beginning with the conversion of Aramaic into Greek, as compared to the Qur’an, which is available only in Arabic. Well, the fact is Jesus can be understood in any language because He spoke in tongues while Mohammad lacks the gifts of the spirit.